MINSK. May 5 (Interfax) - Belarusian police offices who detained Interfax reporter Yury Shamshur and several Russian citizens at the office of Vesna human rights group in Minsk released him after checking his documents.
"After the police officers checked it that I am a journalist who had come to cover a public event, they let me go," Shamshur said.
Others detained at the Vesna office, including Russian citizens, were sent to Pervomaisky district police.
Most journalists who had also arrived to cover the same event were unable to enter the office and observed the developments from the street.
The police had blocked the office of Vesna after receiving a report that suspicious boxes had been taken there. They claimed that they were looking for an explosive device.
This happened 15 minutes before a scheduled video conference of the rapporteur of the Committee of International Control over the Human Rights Situation in Belarus after the Elections Neil Jarman.
The police took away the passports of several Russian citizens at the scene "to see the lawfulness of their presence in Belarus."
According to Vesna sources, Russian human rights activists Yury Jibladze and Sergei Dikman, two Russian women Viktoria Gromova and Lyubov Zakharova, and a Russian TV journalist were at the office of the organization.
The Interfax correspondent reported that those who were staying at the office were not allowed to leave it. The reporters who arrived later, including representatives of Russian national TV channels, were not allowed in.
Police vehicles arrived at the scene and people are led out of the office one by one.